


#IAmVanessaGuillen

by RazzleDazzleBerry



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Iamvanessaguillen, Military, Oneshot, PTSD, Self Ship, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Harassment, Triggers Apply, brief mention of rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:01:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24887266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RazzleDazzleBerry/pseuds/RazzleDazzleBerry
Summary: Vegeta comforts a military!reader after undergoing sexual harassment. Based on actual events. Triggers apply.
Relationships: Vegeta/reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	#IAmVanessaGuillen

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to share my story in the #IAmVanessaGuillen movement and offer my support to those who bear the wounds of military sexual harassment, assault, and abuse that is rarely reported due to the horrific abuses that follow as a result of retaliation. However, I'm not comfortable posting my story on social media. I don’t want my entire family knowing any little bit of what I went through. So I wrote my experiences into a fictional setting.

“(Y/N), this is Vegeta. He’s living with us for the time being, too.” Bulma introduced you to an angry looking man as she escorted you to one of the many spare guest rooms in her bright yellow mansion.

Vegeta read the reflective insignia stamped over your right breast on your heather grey shirt. “This planet has an ‘Air Force’?”

Your eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What do you mean ‘this planet’?”

Bulma chuckled and waved nonchalantly toward Vegeta as though the information she was about to drop wasn’t the least bit shocking or abnormal. “Remember Son Goku? Well he and Vegeta are from the same planet on the other side of the galaxy. Actually we all just came back from a planet called Namek a few months ago.”

You nearly dropped your bags as you looked at Bulma incredulously, not believing anything she had said. Then again, your high school best friend had partook in some unbelievable adventures in her youth. Son Goku was certainly an odd albeit kind character who assisted her in becoming caught up in trouble. 

Without waiting for you to respond, Bulma quickly explained to Vegeta. “Earth has several military defenses including the Air Force. (Y/N) joined right after high school and now she’s finally stationed back home! She’s staying with us until her apartment is ready to move into! Isn’t it great, Vegeta?”

“Tch. If you say so.” 

Vegeta huffed as he walked off, leaving you alone with Bulma once again. “Did I do something to piss him off?”

“No, I’m pretty sure Vegeta was born grumpy. Come on, let’s get you settled in your room. I can’t wait to catch up!” 

A few weeks later you were cracking open the first beer in your new apartment. In true Bulma fashion, your best friend invited everyone she knew to your apartment to celebrate your return home. You recognized Bulma’s longtime on again off again boyfriend, Yamcha. He hugged you and reintroduced you to Krillin. You giggled upon seeing him, he hadn’t grown an inch since he was a kid. Next you met Tien, Chiaotzu, Oolong, and Puar. 

As you met the Z fighters, you introduced your new coworkers from the base hospital. Your supervisor, four of your medic coworkers, and two nurses were more than eager to partake in free beer. You were surprised to see one of the nurses brought along a date, a Major who worked in an office near yours and was fairly disliked by the entire enlisted staff, though he successfully schmoozed those of higher rank than himself.

Vegeta was in attendance, though he sulked in a corner. You sat beside him and offered him a beer which he curtly waved away. “That stuff tastes like watered down piss. I don’t understand why you earthlings care for it so much.”

“More for me, then.” He watched as you placed his bottle to your lips and swallowed a swig. “If you would like, there’s some whiskey in the pantry. It’s stronger than this stuff. Tastes better too.”

“I’ll drink whatever swill you have if it means you leave me alone.” 

For a moment you wanted to kick him out of your apartment. How could one person be so rude when you hadn’t done anything to him to begin with? Then you noticed his eyes rapidly shifting around the room; observing every person, measuring their character, calculating their movements all while keeping himself between them and an exit. You knew that look, that position, all too well. You saw it whenever an airman came home from a particularly rough deployment, you saw it in the mirror after your beloved troop died beneath your bloodied hands’ unsuccessful attempt at resuscitation after an IED exploded by your humvee.

You stepped into the kitchen and came back with a cup of ice water. Vegeta looked to you, momentarily confused until he saw the understanding in your eyes, and he accepted the water with unspoken gratitude and watched as you walked away. 

From that moment on, Vegeta wasn’t nearly as grumpy around you when you hung out at Capsule Corp after work. On the rare occasion when he wasn’t already swimming in his own sweat inside of the gravity chamber, he would sit in the same room as you and Bulma while you two gabbed about anything that came to mind. Much to Bulma’s surprise, he silently tagged along whenever you invited them out for a night on the town with a wingman or two. 

However, as much as he appreciated you never asking him to talk about his experiences, he was able to recognize sooner than any of your civilian friends when you were slowly slipping into a tediously concealed depression. He never asked, though. He carefully observed the way your shoulders slumped a little more with each visit, he knew why you always had bags under your eyes, and he could see the tension growing in your shoulders with each passing day. Though he wasn’t sure what caused it, he recognized it, and he silently promised to intervene if it became too much for you to handle. 

Eleven months passed since you finally arrived back home, but every working day had been hell. The only respite you found was in the comfort of Bulma’s home and the few people who you knew wouldn’t harm you, but even visiting Bulma became too difficult as your heart sank lower in your chest. You arrived home from a long shift in the ICU with heavy feet, a broken heart, and the creeping crawl of betrayal stabbing your backside. 

You shuffled inside, your feet weighed down by the bottomless pit that swirled in your stomach, attempting and succeeding in devouring what little was left of your hopeful heart. You were barely through the door of your apartment before you anxiously, desperately shirked your ABU top and threw it on the floor. Tears streamed down your cheeks as you all but ripped it off your body, you couldn’t get it off fast enough. But even removed, you could still feel that hand-his hand-running down the back of your shirt. Again. 

The door slammed behind you as you fell to the floor and yanked off your boots, blousing straps, and pants. Wearing only your sand t-shirt, knee high green socks, and mismatched underwear, you leaned your back against the door and sobbed. 

Nine years. Nine. Your dreams of becoming a first sergeant were gone. Your progress toward your sixth stripe, undermined. Your future squashed. Your entire career was over and all because you couldn’t take it anymore. All because you broke. All because you finally told the truth.

Your phone rang in your pants’ thigh side pocket, but you couldn’t bring yourself to reach out to the uniform you once loved and looked forward to wearing. These days, whenever you so much as looked at your uniform, your skin would crawl as you relived the Major’s hands grabbing your ass in a room full of people who couldn’t bother to notice the way you suddenly froze. Goose flesh prickled your legs as you remembered the way he smirked while his hand snaked up your thigh inside of his car when he was supposed to be driving you to an important meeting across base. 

An ocean’s worth of tears streamed down your face as night darkened your apartment, but you couldn’t be bothered to turn on the light. Darkness comforted you, because at least this way, you could imagine you were alone in the world with no one placing their uninvited hands on your body. 

As you cried, you recalled the inspector general laughing in your face when you anxiously blurted out that a man twice your age, twice your size, and carrying a much heavier rank than you was abusing his authority by sexually harassing you at every opportunity over the last eleven months. Your sobs grew hysterical as you remembered the mental health officer who was supposed to be unbiased, told you they didn’t believe you. They blamed you for allowing the abuse to happen, to continue happening. Then, adding a cherry on top of the victim blaming sundae, she accused you of lying, of attempting to file for a fraudulent VA claim. 

It wasn’t until you returned to your unit after filing the sexual harassment complaint that you learned the Major was close friends with both the inspector general and the mental health officer. You weren’t aware they had both called him and told him what you were accusing him of, breaking your right to anonymity and violating the HIPAA laws. More significantly, they intentionally made you vulnerable to base wide retaliation and further harassment by all of the Major’s friends. 

Exhaustion claimed your shaking body. The last eleven months claimed every ounce of your energy and cast you into the depths of the deepest black hole you might never climb out of. However, you didn’t have enough strength left in you to crawl to your room. Instead you passed out on the cold tile in front of your apartment door, your phone ringing and going unanswered for the fifth time that night. 

Bulma sat on her couch and clenched her phone in her hand as worry lines crossed her forehead. She was dressed up and ready to go out for the evening with you, but you weren’t answering her calls. Where the hell were you? It was so unlike you to blow her off. You two had been friends most of your lives, but now you weren’t answering her calls and you weren’t coming over as often anymore. Each day you seemed more exhausted than the last until you stopped coming over so you could sleep. 

Vegeta walked into the living room wearing appropriate dinner attire as Bulma dropped her phone in her lap. With a gruff voice he asked, “Didn’t you and (Y/N) make dinner plans?”

“Yea. I’ve been calling her all evening and she’s not answering. Vegeta, I think something’s wrong.” Bulma turned to look at Vegeta, but he had already run through the open sliding glass door and flew off the balcony. 

A moment later, Vegeta landed on your balcony and knocked on the glass door. However, there was no answer. He knocked again and peered inside. The entire apartment was dark, but he felt your energy by the front door. Adrenaline coursed through his veins as he realized your energy was growing weaker by the second and urgently yanked on the balcony door handle, breaking the lock that held it shut. 

The door slid open with ease and he rushed inside, but his breath caught in his throat as he witnessed your heartbroken form sleeping restlessly on the chilled tile with the pieces of your uniform angrily tossed away from you. Carefully, he reached out to your shoulder. In an instant you were awake and cowering against the door as your tormented mind tried to process who had woken you. 

“(Y/N),” Vegeta held up his hands to show he wasn’t a threat. “It’s just me. You’re in your home. You’re safe. I’m not here to hurt you.”

You blinked the panic from your sleepy eyes, but your shallow breathing never slowed. “Vegeta?”

He knew you hadn’t meant to, but your voice cracked and betrayed your internalized pain. Your eyes shifted over the edges of his shadowy body, frantically attempting to determine his intentions as you subconsciously tried to push yourself away from him. Vegeta knew that look, that position, all too well. He had seen it so abundantly in the few women who served in Freeza’s army, he saw it in the mirror after Freeza told him they were going to play an “innocent” game of hide and seek when he was just a boy. 

Vegeta stood, crossed the quiet darkened apartment and entered the kitchen. A second later he pressed an icy glass of water into your hands. Despite the dark, you saw his understanding. You felt it in his calloused palms as they pressed the glass into your hands, returning your earlier gesture. 

As tears resumed their free flow down your cheeks, he reached out to wipe them with his thumb before sitting beside you and pulling you into his lap. He wrapped his arms around your half clothed body, but never offered anything except a gentle comforting touch as you cried into his nice dinner shirt, feeling safe for the first time in months.


End file.
